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ToaKraka  Dislikes you  1yr ago (text post)   1494 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 2, 2022

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I have ADHD.

It sucks.

I also have a prescription for Ritalin, which sucks too, but at a level of suffering that may be worth it depending on the circumstances.

For example, I'm about to give a licensing exam that would serve as a golden ticket from what would otherwise be a rather unhappy life in India, and Ritalin, for all its drawbacks, is bearable if it helps me power through just a bit longer. Otherwise, I would never take it willingly. The side effects are far too debilitating, think palpitations, anxiety to a distracting extent, and for marginal gains in "daily" life, even as a doctor.

Thankfully, I've (re)discovered a semi-panacea for my condition-

Green tea. Or rather, Earl Grey in this specific instance. It's fucking magical how quickly and consistently it calms my nerves when I feel like my heart is about to beat itself out of my chest (on a low, sustained dose of Ritalin btw), I can't overstate how welcome it is to be able to take it without dreading the consequences.

I strongly believe that it's due to the levels of l-theanine, already popular in nootropic circles for its anxiolytic effects.

Give it a whirl if you're facing similar issues, while I'm not sure it makes Ritalin something I would want to take on a daily basis, it's making it significantly easier to bear!

(It helps that Earl Grey is kinda nice, just have to wait a few more decades for the male pattern baldness to really kick in, and my Pickard cosplay will be immaculate haha)

Not going to repeat at length the "adhd ~ acting as part of a social life-path one isn't innately interested in" thing

Reading the wiki article + a few papers on theanine and anxiety, the evidence seems inconclusive.

The mean L-theanine content of white, green, oolong, and black teas were 6.26, 6.56, 6.09, and 5.13 mg/g, respectively. The same values for caffeine content were 16.79, 16.28, 19.31, and 17.73 mg/g.

Halfway through reading your post, my guess was caffeine might be the cause - and you'd expect the caffeine content of tea to have more psychological effect than theanine, given it's what people notice when they drink tea. But caffiene would tend to increase blood pressure and anxiety, does the theanine (if it has that effect) have an even stronger effect? Idk.

I am quite certain that caffeine can't possibly be the reason, because I've been drinking plenty of coffee of late before switching to EG, and all it does (and ever did!) is worsen my palpitations.

Tea is quite low in caffeine in the first place, at least if using coffee as a benchmark. I assume the degree of wakefulness produced is also a function of caffeine tolerance, which would be much higher in coffee drinkers, though it certainly doesn't outweigh it enough for coffee to not be more wakefulness promoting AFAIK.

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